Friday, August 14, 2015

2015 Federal Election Link Round-up, Week 2

Week 2 begins! Polling from Week 1 was notable for its absence, which is perhaps not too surprising. Polling takes a little bit of lead time, and vacations can be difficult to re-schedule on such short notice. Hopefully we'll see some more numbers this week.

I thought Mulcair and May were the best. The few memorable lines, the ones likely to be replayed as sound-bites over the next 2 months, were all theirs. Certainly Harper managed to parry all the attacks (and, as PM, inevitably got most of them) and Trudeau came across as competent and qualified (which, unlike some viewers, I never doubted) but they didn't land any real punches.

With expectations significantly lowered for JT going into the first debate, I can see why many saw him as coming out on top...he was a lot stronger and more credible than expected given all of the "just not ready" talk. But agree with Ira, nobody really rose above the pack except May - who, let's face it, is irrelevant.

BTW Eric - I'm sure you've been asked this ad nauseum...are you changing the name of the website after the election?

I could understand the belief that Trudeau did well if not for his closing remarks. They were remarkably vapid. I also didn't like his use of "No one believes you" when responding to true statements Harper made. Maybe it's true that no one believes Harper, and maybe it's true that Harper was spouting entirely useless facts, but they were still facts. I would much prefer Trudeau make reasoned arguments. I was reminded of the moment in the 2006 debate when Paul Martin was claiming that his government would lower taxes on the lowest income Canadians, and Harper responded (entirely factually) with "The lowest income Canadians don't pay any taxes." By the third time he said it he was clearly exasperated, and verged on condescending, but he was right.

I like these debates to be about facts.

Harper was oddly stilted in this one. You'd think he'd be better at this by now.

Mulcair's closing remarks worked well when he was moving quickly, but he'd clearly been told to speak more slowly to give his words gravity, and that messed up his cadence and made him lose his place in his notes. Only when he realised he was running out of time did he pick up the pace, and then suddenly he was better. His campaign team is responsible for that one; they need to get to know their leader better.

This debate was pretty mild, with nobody really standing out too much. May didn't do badly, but she was talked over a lot. Probably the most significant revelation was Harper's admission that he asked the Senate to kill a bill passed by the elected House of Commons.

Foreign policy was definitely a weak spot, with not a single leader being all that honest. For example, nobody mentioned the issue of the Turks attacking the Kurds in last week, who're supposedly our main anti-ISIS allies. Or that it has conclusively been proven by now that ISIS gets money by selling oil to Turkey. I guess nobody wanted to embarrass a NATO ally, but it's one more reason that Canada shouldn't be getting militarily involved in this mess - wouldn't it be more honest to put pressure on Turkey to cut off ISIS's funding instead? It seems that Canada's entire foreign policy lately is to be loyal to whatever the neocons in the US want, with no independent thought.

Ukraine's another example, with not a single party leader acknowledging that the situation there is a lot more complex than the "evil-Putin-attacks-peaceful-Ukrainian-democracy-lovers" narrative, or that almost all of the civilians are continuing to be killed by "our" side (it's one reason that I'll never vote for the NDP in this election, as Mulcair is even more of a war-monger than Harper in Ukraine, and Harper's bad enough).

I disagree. If you make a decision without having paid attention, it's easier to believe the most attractive lie you're told because you're less likely to perceive the complexity of the issue, or come across contrary evidence.

Those flat earthers on YouTube don't hold those opinions because they're paying attention to the world around them.

How is one suppose to use sound (hearing) to determine a position when one isn't paying attention, you simply will not register what is written or said and since you are not paying attention it will be difficult if not impossible to turn any facts one hears or reads into the basis of a decision.

As for the flatearthers on Youtube. Perhaps they believe in a flat Earth because they do pay attention and willfully choose to disregards others' opinions. The point is if one does not pay attention others' opinions, facts, context, will have zero impact for the simple reason that one is not paying attention. In short it becomes a wholly personal decision. How can one be fooled when they disregard any external material?

Which should lead everyone to be cautious about how representative the sample is of the general Canadian population. 33 million people and you were polled twice in one day by two different firms???? This cannot possibly a random sample. These numbers reflect people who answer polls on any given day, based on lists that were not randomly gathered, not the general population. I'm surprised Main Street, run by Ignatief's head organizer didn't poll you as well. In a truly random sample you might be polled once in your lifetime if you were lucky.

And that is not the first time I have heard of one person being polled multiple times during an election. Some polls are even set up that way as a panel, and many polling firms use lists that are not the phone book. Just because a polling sample is adjusted to reflect census data by age, sex and region does not make it a random sample representative of the general population.

I would be interested in having Eric ask his commenters how many times they have been polled about an election. Keep in mind 33 million Canadians, lets say 25 million can vote. If Eric gets, yeah I've been polled several times, and I think he will, we will have a greater understanding of the weakness of various polls. Its all about their lists not necessarily the methodology aka IVR versus live interview, or cell phone versus landline. It's where did the list come from, sometimes believe it or not, the list comes from a political party.

And you have been a member of a political party have you not Eric? It also may be a case of throw enough gunk at a wall and some of it will stick. If polling companies are making lets say 100 calls to get one response, then it is also who is choosing to answer. Aka the general population does not answer polls. What we are seeing is who from the list any given company is using is choosing to answer the poll, even if it was a random computer dial of all phone numbers in Canada, and I don't think that is how many of them do it. It's too much work, and its too expensive. That's why you get the Liberals in BC having far superior polling numbers, and knowing they were winning, when the prediction was an NDP blowout. People wonder why the Conservatives are still targeting Mr. Trudeau not Mr. Mulcair. I will put forward that that is exactly what the superior polling numbers that cost lots of money are telling them to do.

For the Prairies and Alberta, the numbers might be off because Nanos doesn't distinguish the two, so I simply used the same numbers for both regions, but that probably isn't right. It still gives you a general idea of the situation though.

Maybe but, it could also be a temporary blip. I thought Mulcair bombed in the debate but, he only experienced minor loss. Mulcair looked over-rehearsed and couldn't improvise when he lost his place in his notes, he looked insincere, not genuine and very much like a career politician who's not in it for the little guy! After Trudeau's building an economy from the "heart out" comments the Conservative attack ads sure look justified; how does one build an economy from the heart out Justin? I'm sure no one knows including the leader of the Liberal party.

I enjoy watching the seat projections go up and down with the polls. I'm very curious to see which seats are the ones jumping around and between whom as the numbers change ever so slightly week to week in the projections.

Is there anyway to puzzle this out on my own... or even better... way for you to flag it to my attention?

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